Latest / The Real News Podcast / Once upon a time in Miami: The heartland of Latin American counter-revolution
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to Rattling the Bars. I'm your host, Manson Moussa.
- 0:02Speaker 1: At Rattling the Bars, we examine the prison industrial complex,
- 0:06Speaker 1: both domestically and internationally. Miami floor sits at the direct
- 0:10Speaker 1: intersection of U.S. imperialism across the Caribbean and Latin America.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Joining me today is Dr. Kim Miller, an organizer in
- 0:19Speaker 1: Miami fighting to end sanctions and the embargo on Cuba,
- 0:24Speaker 1: opposing the termination of TPS for Haiti and building solidarity.
- 0:30Speaker 1: with nations targeted for their socialist or abolitionist revolution. Welcome, Kim.
- 0:37Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm really excited to be here for this conversation.
- 0:40Speaker 1: All right, so first introduce yourself to our audience and
- 0:44Speaker 1: tell them about your work with Black Alliance for Peace
- 0:46Speaker 1: in Miami.
- 0:47Speaker 2: Yeah. So my name is Kimberly Dawn Miller. I have
- 0:51Speaker 2: a Ph.D. in global studies with a concentration in environmental sociology.
- 0:56Speaker 2: So I research particularly the Eastern Caribbean, looking at the
- 1:00Speaker 2: contradictions of the post-colonial state, neoliberal development regimes, as well
- 1:06Speaker 2: as the politics of post-disaster recovery. So I kind of
- 1:10Speaker 2: use a lot of my organizing to also inform my research.
- 1:13Speaker 2: And right now I am the Miami Point person for
- 1:16Speaker 2: the Black Alliance for Peace Miami Cluster, as well as
- 1:20Speaker 2: the co-coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti Americas team.
- 1:24Speaker 2: So Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and the Caribbean at large are
- 1:28Speaker 2: very central to our anti-imperialist organizing and situating and centering
- 1:34Speaker 2: Haiti in particular as a node of black liberation and
- 1:38Speaker 2: why we fight so hard for their sovereignty.
- 1:40Speaker 1: Kim, you focus heavily on Cuba. Can you discuss the
- 1:44Speaker 1: organizing you're doing locally in Miami and internationally against the
- 1:49Speaker 1: direct attack on the achievement of the Cuban revolution?
- 1:53Speaker 2: Miami, Florida, is basically the heartland of Latin American counterrevolution.
- 1:59Speaker 2: And it is a central city that has a lot
- 2:02Speaker 2: of reactionary diaspora politics from Latin America and particularly, you know,
- 2:06Speaker 2: the Cuban exile community, Venezuelan exile community, supporting some of
- 2:11Speaker 2: the more far right policies, including the economic and oil policies.
- 2:15Speaker 2: blockade occurring on Cuba. So it's been important, though, that
- 2:20Speaker 2: we resist this notion of creating a monolith regarding the
- 2:25Speaker 2: politics of Miami at the same time. So the Black
- 2:28Speaker 2: Alliance for Peace in Miami, we work with the Miami
- 2:31Speaker 2: Coalition to end the blockade on Cuba. which is a
- 2:34Speaker 2: coalition of many different organizations, as well as trying to
- 2:38Speaker 2: fight in a decades-long organization, trying to fight along with
- 2:42Speaker 2: the national network on Cuba. And starting tomorrow, October 24th,
- 2:47Speaker 2: is the Cuba Week of Action Against the U.S. Genocide
- 2:51Speaker 2: on Cuba. And it's through the 31st of October. And
- 2:55Speaker 2: we're really trying to mobilize for an international and national
- 2:58Speaker 2: day of action for Cuba on the 28th, which coincides
- 3:02Speaker 2: with the UN's annual vote, where a majority of the
- 3:06Speaker 2: world's countries will be able to vote on the embargo
- 3:09Speaker 2: on Cuba. And we want to show that in Miami,
- 3:13Speaker 2: Florida as well, the heartland of, like I said, Latin
- 3:15Speaker 2: American counterrevolution, that not all voices in Miami support what
- 3:21Speaker 2: this government is doing. specifically tightening sanctions, as well as
- 3:27Speaker 2: blocking solidarity, international solidarity with the Cuban people, as well
- 3:35Speaker 2: as their access to even third party, like I said, financing.
- 3:39Speaker 2: So we're really just trying to show the economic strangulation
- 3:42Speaker 2: that's occurring and stand in solidarity with Cuba, the Cuban revolution,
- 3:47Speaker 2: as well as those that are resisting.
- 3:50Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack the issues that's taking place in
- 3:55Speaker 1: Cuba as it relates to the international community. You have,
- 4:01Speaker 1: and you can address this from your experience and what
- 4:04Speaker 1: you know to be the facts, you have the so-called
- 4:07Speaker 1: left in the United States, anarchists, but people that have
- 4:11Speaker 1: a particular political ideology, and they're critiquing Cuba in a
- 4:18Speaker 1: sense of saying that the centralization of the government is problematic,
- 4:26Speaker 1: and if they didn't have this centralized government, then it
- 4:33Speaker 1: would be more likely they wouldn't be suffering from the
- 4:37Speaker 1: imperialist onslaught. Talk about what's your experience, and what do
- 4:42Speaker 1: you say about that?
- 4:43Speaker 2: Right, well, I think that lies at a fundamental disagreement
- 4:47Speaker 2: on maybe the nature of the state when it comes
- 4:51Speaker 2: to how maybe a Marxist-Leninist would view state power versus
- 4:54Speaker 2: an anarchist. So one thing I've been trying to reference
- 4:57Speaker 2: a lot of times is Lenin's State and Revolution, where
- 5:00Speaker 2: he clearly identifies that the state does not hover above
- 5:03Speaker 2: class interests, class power. And if you see the state
- 5:07Speaker 2: as instrumental to class antagonisms and class power, then what
- 5:11Speaker 2: does it mean when you have a state like Cuba
- 5:13Speaker 2: that had a socialist revolution and that did expropriate from
- 5:16Speaker 2: the bourgeoisie and actually identify class power within institutions? And
- 5:21Speaker 2: I think when you look at the state, not as
- 5:23Speaker 2: a monolithic or a flattened character, but actually looking at
- 5:26Speaker 2: the state in terms of its global configuration within, like
- 5:30Speaker 2: I said, the capitalist world order, it becomes very clear
- 5:33Speaker 2: that Cuba, the Cuban state, is not inherently the same
- 5:36Speaker 2: as the U.S. state, right? There are several colonial states.
- 5:40Speaker 2: There are imperialized states. There are states in the imperial core.
- 5:45Speaker 2: And we have to recognize these differences to come to
- 5:49Speaker 2: a conclusion on the nature of the state, people's power
- 5:53Speaker 2: within its dynamic within the state, as well as the
- 5:55Speaker 2: function of that state. And I do think when you
- 5:57Speaker 2: have anti-imperialist states, it's fundamentally different. And they're targeted because
- 6:03Speaker 2: they represent a more autonomous or sovereign form of development.
- 6:08Speaker 2: And it's hard to move toward... no state, if you will,
- 6:12Speaker 2: when you have the imperialist attack, right? So you just
- 6:16Speaker 2: need levels of defense, right? Iran is another example. You
- 6:20Speaker 2: need a state to defend against imperialist onslaught. And I
- 6:24Speaker 2: do think that maybe putting the cart before the horse,
- 6:27Speaker 2: it's important to understand those differences. And in addition to that,
- 6:31Speaker 2: I want to add that the dynamic between, for instance,
- 6:34Speaker 2: grassroots popular power and communes is not necessarily antagonistic to
- 6:39Speaker 2: the state, the socialist state itself. And I think that
- 6:42Speaker 2: that's important to kind of demystify the idea that there's
- 6:45Speaker 2: either just like an authoritarian, like socialist state versus like
- 6:49Speaker 2: popular power beneath. And I think that just in my
- 6:52Speaker 2: experience in Venezuela, even though we know there's been a
- 6:54Speaker 2: lot of restructuring happening, to the Venezuelan state since January 3rd,
- 6:57Speaker 2: I did see a popular consultation on International Working Women's
- 7:01Speaker 2: Day within the communes. And I did see that how
- 7:04Speaker 2: they were trying to actually like build their communal capacity,
- 7:08Speaker 2: which Hugo Chavez said is the base for transforming the
- 7:12Speaker 2: bourgeois state as well as capitalist social relations. So I
- 7:16Speaker 2: do think that you can have a dialectical and sometimes, yes,
- 7:19Speaker 2: antagonistic relationship between communes and the state. But I do
- 7:22Speaker 2: think it's important to understand that it's not necessarily opposed
- 7:26Speaker 2: and that they work within the Bolivarian process to get
- 7:28Speaker 2: financing for infrastructure in their own productive capacity. So that's
- 7:32Speaker 2: one thing I wanted to add there, as well as
- 7:33Speaker 2: you can see a country like China that has rural
- 7:36Speaker 2: village cooperatives and land ownership. And what does that mean
- 7:39Speaker 2: for the actual community that is still a centralized party state,
- 7:42Speaker 2: but they still have a communicative and participatory democracy within that. So, yeah.
- 7:48Speaker 1: Right. Okay. And I think that's a very astute observation
- 7:52Speaker 1: because I think that, and I've been in a lot
- 7:55Speaker 1: of these spaces, when people make an analysis, they have
- 7:58Speaker 1: a tendency to the foundation be based on misinformation to
- 8:04Speaker 1: begin with. And they build out on that. They build
- 8:07Speaker 1: out on, like you say, it's a difference between the
- 8:09Speaker 1: United States and the state that Lenin It's talked about
- 8:14Speaker 1: with state revolution. Let's shift our gears and talk about Haiti. Switching,
- 8:19Speaker 1: we see a different history, not a socialist revolution, but
- 8:24Speaker 1: an abolition one in Haiti, right? Establishing the first black
- 8:28Speaker 1: republic through slaves' revolt. Historically targeted by the United States imperialists,
- 8:34Speaker 1: Haiti recently became the focal point of a campaign by
- 8:38Speaker 1: Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Given that Florida holds the
- 8:42Speaker 1: largest Haitian population in the U.S., what are the local
- 8:48Speaker 1: and international dynamics that exist within that? It's almost as
- 8:54Speaker 1: if Tucson, Overture, Ghost haunts anybody that got a view
- 9:04Speaker 1: of history that's imperialist. It's the involvement by the United
- 9:10Speaker 1: States and continues to destabilize it, is criminal in and
- 9:14Speaker 1: of itself. Talk about the Haitian aspect of your analysis.
- 9:19Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's an excellent overview. I think it
- 9:22Speaker 2: speaks to the idea of Black ungovernability and the idea
- 9:25Speaker 2: that since 1804, when Thomas Jefferson snubbed Dessalines, it was
- 9:30Speaker 2: always the idea that Haiti was going to be excluded.
- 9:32Speaker 2: Haiti was seen as a model of Black liberation of
- 9:36Speaker 2: formerly enslaved people freeing themselves, creating its first independent state
- 9:40Speaker 2: in Latin America. And what does that symbolize to enslaved
- 9:43Speaker 2: Africans in the United States? It was the idea that...
- 9:48Speaker 2: Black sovereignty is a threat to the powers that be, essentially.
- 9:52Speaker 2: And these are the class contradictions that Dossaline was trying
- 9:54Speaker 2: to actually kind of resolve through a kind of form
- 9:57Speaker 2: of early social social agrarian reform that actually did occur.
- 10:04Speaker 2: He was assassinated. But just thinking about the long history
- 10:06Speaker 2: of foreign interventions in Haiti, like I said, they weren't
- 10:09Speaker 2: really given access to international credit through non-diplomatic recognition. And
- 10:13Speaker 2: then when France did recognize Haiti, they had to pay
- 10:15Speaker 2: an indemnity. So the idea that it's creating successive notions
- 10:18Speaker 2: of debt that Haitians never want to take on. But
- 10:22Speaker 2: the idea of, oh, well, you know, to recognize you,
- 10:24Speaker 2: you have to pay for your freedom. Right. And then
- 10:28Speaker 2: we did in particular.
- 10:29Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 10:30Speaker 2: In Miami, we actually did a teach in looking at
- 10:32Speaker 2: the 1915 U.S. occupation where the U.S. rewrote the Haitian
- 10:37Speaker 2: constitution to allow foreign ownership of land that was banned
- 10:40Speaker 2: in Haiti. as well as making sure that it opened
- 10:43Speaker 2: up to U.S. capital to exploit rural workers, right, to
- 10:47Speaker 2: basically extract from the country. So the U.S. has always
- 10:51Speaker 2: had a very, and of course, through Bank of New York,
- 10:54Speaker 2: which is now Citibank, extracting, like I said, it's gold, right,
- 10:58Speaker 2: it's resources. And I think that that's an example, even
- 11:01Speaker 2: to this day, since the pandemic, the current gang suppression
- 11:05Speaker 2: force occupation after the multiple occupations from the U.N., after
- 11:10Speaker 2: the U.S., France and Canada, back the coup in 2004
- 11:14Speaker 2: against Aristide. I mean, you just see this constant history
- 11:16Speaker 2: of intervention and occupation. And I do think, like you said,
- 11:20Speaker 2: it's to keep them destabilized because a functioning Haiti, a
- 11:23Speaker 2: sovereign Haiti, that is, I believe, a model of what
- 11:27Speaker 2: Black sovereignty could and should mean.
- 11:30Speaker 1: So what are y'all doing to organize and change this
- 11:33Speaker 1: narrative in terms of how Haiti is being looked at.
- 11:36Speaker 1: Because that goes a long ways in terms of not
- 11:38Speaker 1: so much as the imperialists. The imperialists are going to lie.
- 11:42Speaker 1: I think God will say, when you're dealing with propaganda,
- 11:45Speaker 1: find a narrative and repeat it over and over and
- 11:47Speaker 1: over again until people come to believe it. So we
- 11:49Speaker 1: know that's going to come from them. But talk about
- 11:53Speaker 1: how y'all organize and get people to see the need
- 11:56Speaker 1: to be involved in what's going on in Haiti and
- 12:01Speaker 1: aid and assistance. the Haitian people in their liberation?
- 12:05Speaker 2: Well, in the Black Alliance for Peace and the Haiti
- 12:07Speaker 2: Americas team, we always say that Haiti's crisis is one
- 12:10Speaker 2: of imperialism. It's not of the Haitian people. We work
- 12:14Speaker 2: and move against narratives that dehumanize the Haitian public, that
- 12:17Speaker 2: pathologize them. And I think it's important, once you understand
- 12:20Speaker 2: that the crisis is imperialism, you see it as an
- 12:22Speaker 2: externally driven, right, crisis. We know, for instance, that all
- 12:27Speaker 2: the arms that the gangs are using, the paramilitary groups
- 12:31Speaker 2: are using in Haiti come from Miami. They're trafficked from
- 12:34Speaker 2: Miami to the Dominican Republic into Haiti. So there's an
- 12:37Speaker 2: arms embargo on Haiti. And yet these weapons are flooding
- 12:42Speaker 2: the country. Right. And what does that mean around how
- 12:45Speaker 2: the source of the problem? Right. Haiti is a weapons manufacturer.
- 12:48Speaker 2: So the guns are getting there somewhere from the United States.
- 12:51Speaker 2: That's one way. We also look at the culpability of, unfortunately,
- 12:54Speaker 2: a lot of Latin American governments, right? El Salvador right
- 12:57Speaker 2: now is actually trying to basically start war with Haiti
- 13:01Speaker 2: by saying like, you know, oh, we have our four
- 13:03Speaker 2: servicemen that were kidnapped and now we're going to go in.
- 13:07Speaker 2: And it's like, well, why are there Salvadoran troops? in Haiti, right?
- 13:10Speaker 2: It speaks to this idea that there's this global kind
- 13:13Speaker 2: of almost subjugation of the Haitian people because, you know,
- 13:16Speaker 2: this is the international community that is sanctioning Chad or
- 13:21Speaker 2: Kenya going in and representing on behalf of the United States.
- 13:25Speaker 2: It's proposed military solution for Haiti, but it's never looking
- 13:29Speaker 2: at the political situation, never looking at the core group, right?
- 13:32Speaker 2: The countries of, you know, U.S., Canada, France, I believe Germany,
- 13:38Speaker 2: also Brazil. We don't know that Brazil has a long
- 13:41Speaker 2: history of oppressing Haiti. So I think it's important that
- 13:45Speaker 2: we look at all these factors and that we understand
- 13:48Speaker 2: that the gangs are getting, quote unquote, support by the oligarchs, right?
- 13:52Speaker 2: And what does that mean? And what is the relationship
- 13:54Speaker 2: between the elites in Haiti, the violence happening against the
- 13:58Speaker 2: mostly working class Haitians, and how do we address the
- 14:01Speaker 2: root of the problem instead of, like I said, stigmatizing
- 14:03Speaker 2: the Haitian people? as well as attacking them through TPS,
- 14:08Speaker 2: which is basically saying that, you know, we created, the U.S.
- 14:10Speaker 2: helped create these conditions, and now we're going to send
- 14:12Speaker 2: them back to that. You know, people aren't temporary. Haitians
- 14:15Speaker 2: aren't temporary. And it's unfortunate that the mass deportation of
- 14:19Speaker 2: this regime is trying to kind of keep Haitians, and
- 14:23Speaker 2: like I said, exploit their labor when it's convenient, but
- 14:25Speaker 2: also keep them in a state of precarity, right? And,
- 14:28Speaker 2: you know, like you said, Miami has a huge Haitian population,
- 14:30Speaker 2: I think the second highest in the country. And they're
- 14:32Speaker 2: in particular fields like hospitality industry, construction, home health care. And,
- 14:38Speaker 2: you know, they're being devastated right now. The communities are
- 14:40Speaker 2: definitely fearful, but we want to push back against the narrative.
- 14:43Speaker 2: We want to put an anti-imperialist analysis into our understanding
- 14:47Speaker 2: of the Haitian immigrant and migrant crisis.
- 14:49Speaker 1: Yeah, just the effect of imperialism. It's not people just
- 14:52Speaker 1: not wanting to live a quasi-life. We remember Baby Doc,
- 14:56Speaker 1: Papa Doc, and Tantan Lee Koo. We remember when they
- 15:01Speaker 1: was ravishing the country, being a footstool for imperialists, taking
- 15:06Speaker 1: all the minerals and the natural resources out of Haiti
- 15:09Speaker 1: and putting a little money in their pocket in comparison.
- 15:13Speaker 1: So we're well aware, and that's a good viewpoint, as
- 15:18Speaker 1: you expressed it, Dr. Kim, because we got to push back.
- 15:22Speaker 1: I think that, you know, when they say, their response
- 15:26Speaker 1: to the oppression is the reason why they're oppressed. You're
- 15:30Speaker 1: oppressed because you're saying, get your foot off my neck.
- 15:34Speaker 1: But talk about how the United States and imperialists in particular,
- 15:37Speaker 1: and this is a shift in terms of not so
- 15:41Speaker 1: much the Trump administration, but the general attitude of imperialists
- 15:45Speaker 1: and capitalists and fascists around the world, how they deal
- 15:48Speaker 1: with Maduro and the fact that they're talking about coming,
- 15:52Speaker 1: kidnapping him, Oh, but they threaten in any country that
- 15:57Speaker 1: stand up and try to identify with any type of sovereignty.
- 16:03Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, I think for us, we understand that, you know,
- 16:06Speaker 2: the the illegal right kidnapping of a head of state
- 16:10Speaker 2: when it came to Maduro and his wife, Delia Flores,
- 16:14Speaker 2: and bring them to Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. What
- 16:18Speaker 2: does this say when the U.S. gets to espouse and
- 16:21Speaker 2: impose extraterritorial coercion against a sovereign country? And we know
- 16:27Speaker 2: historically when the U.S. would indict, for instance, Noriega from Panama, right?
- 16:32Speaker 2: Indict for drug trafficking, even though he was the CIA
- 16:36Speaker 2: guy until he didn't play ball.
- 16:40Speaker 1: Right.
- 16:40Speaker 2: Well, he didn't play ball geopolitically. And then suddenly, you know,
- 16:44Speaker 2: he needs to be removed. We know, again, with the
- 16:46Speaker 2: kidnapping of Aristide in 2004 and dropping him off in
- 16:50Speaker 2: the Central African Republic. You know, this is not new
- 16:53Speaker 2: what the U.S. is doing. I think what makes this
- 16:55Speaker 2: particularly horrific is just knowing it's the combination of the
- 17:00Speaker 2: war on drugs with the war on terror.
- 17:02Speaker 1: Right.
- 17:02Speaker 2: So you have this narco terror. Right. We know that
- 17:05Speaker 2: the U.S. has sadly bombed 240 Caribbean and Latin American
- 17:09Speaker 2: men on boats extrajudicially for being narco terrorists. Right. And
- 17:14Speaker 2: you're seeing, like I said, the collusion of I do
- 17:16Speaker 2: think these two kind of law enforcement mechanisms that is
- 17:22Speaker 2: aligned with imperialist interests. So I think that's one thing
- 17:25Speaker 2: that we look at when advocating for our zone of peace.
- 17:29Speaker 2: And basically saying that the U.S. and looking at the
- 17:32Speaker 2: heart of U.S. militarization in the region, this is not new.
- 17:35Speaker 2: Venezuela wasn't the first. And with, like you said, these
- 17:37Speaker 2: indictments on Raul Castro, the indictments on the Cuban president, Diaz-Canal.
- 17:42Speaker 2: I mean, the U.N., particularly in Florida, it was Florida
- 17:45Speaker 2: that just put out a arrest warrant, which the state
- 17:48Speaker 2: of Florida cannot actually enforce. Right, right. But this idea
- 17:54Speaker 2: of the performance, we were tough on the communists. I mean,
- 17:57Speaker 2: it plays into a lot of red meat to their base,
- 17:59Speaker 2: but it's also just incredibly illegal and, you know, a
- 18:02Speaker 2: part of how the U.S. has operated sadly in this
- 18:05Speaker 2: re-intensification of the Monroe Doctrine that we're seeing.
- 18:07Speaker 1: We do remember this, and you can weigh in on
- 18:10Speaker 1: this if you want to. We do remember this, the Iran-Contra,
- 18:13Speaker 1: where they was selling guns for cocaine. And And the
- 18:19Speaker 1: cocaine flooded the United States. And when it flooded the
- 18:23Speaker 1: United States, you had the crime bill. And the crime
- 18:25Speaker 1: bill was designed to make crack cocaine worse than powder cocaine.
- 18:31Speaker 1: But any kind of cocaine was coming in the country
- 18:35Speaker 1: through the military and the United States government with the
- 18:40Speaker 1: goal of destabilizing Nicaragua and killing off American citizens. If
- 18:48Speaker 1: you got a viewpoint on that, you can weigh in there.
- 18:51Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's interesting. 60 Minutes before 60
- 18:54Speaker 2: Minutes became terrible. When they used to do journalism, they
- 18:56Speaker 2: actually had a report after the invasion of Panama. And
- 19:00Speaker 2: it basically said that looking at the post-Nuriega political climate,
- 19:05Speaker 2: it's been skyrocketing drug addiction of crack cocaine. Largely Afro-Panamanians
- 19:10Speaker 2: would be addicted now to crack after the invasion. After
- 19:14Speaker 2: the US invaded, then you see a rise of crack
- 19:17Speaker 2: cocaine flooding the country so it's like this weird kind
- 19:20Speaker 2: of like contradiction that they're you know invading to stop
- 19:23Speaker 2: the narco tear you know the um the idea that
- 19:26Speaker 2: drug trafficking is the reason that they're going in and
- 19:29Speaker 2: then yet it's got far worse i think that's a
- 19:31Speaker 2: similar idea when it comes to how you know the
- 19:34Speaker 2: cia went through the concerts in nicaragua to make sure
- 19:37Speaker 2: you know that the where that you know drugs were
- 19:40Speaker 2: being funneled would be uh poor black and brown communities
- 19:44Speaker 2: right and like just and we're the ones that suffer
- 19:46Speaker 2: so that's why black alliance for peace says No compromise,
- 19:49Speaker 2: no retreat, which is the way in which the war
- 19:50Speaker 2: on African people here is connected to the global war
- 19:53Speaker 2: on African people abroad. And I think that's just one
- 19:56Speaker 2: excellent example.
- 19:58Speaker 1: And as we wrap up, talk about, you know, the
- 20:01Speaker 1: 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party was this month.
- 20:05Speaker 1: And the Black Panther Party, out of all Organizations during
- 20:10Speaker 1: that time that came up had an international platform. Asada Shakur,
- 20:17Speaker 1: Cuba gave Asada Shakur sanctuary. Huey, he was in exile,
- 20:24Speaker 1: gave him sanctuary. Algeria, we had an embassy in Algeria.
- 20:30Speaker 1: Pete O'Neill and Charles O'Neill is in Tanzania. But talk
- 20:33Speaker 1: about why it's so important that our movement, have an
- 20:38Speaker 1: international perspective about our struggle?
- 20:43Speaker 2: Yeah. So thinking specifically, you know, when you have these
- 20:46Speaker 2: kind of like more narrow nationalist xenophobic movements coming up
- 20:49Speaker 2: that try to say like, you know, Black Americans, Black American,
- 20:52Speaker 2: we're not African. And like thinking about the history of
- 20:54Speaker 2: Black radical struggle, it was always internationalist. It was always
- 20:58Speaker 2: about connecting the fight against imperialism and how that shapes
- 21:02Speaker 2: our own the militarization of our own communities here right
- 21:05Speaker 2: whether it was like the 1033 program um you know
- 21:08Speaker 2: weapons from wars being kind of funneled into local police
- 21:11Speaker 2: departments that have a disproportionate effect on like i said
- 21:13Speaker 2: black people or the idea that the idf right will
- 21:16Speaker 2: train uh local police departments here right in the surveillance
- 21:19Speaker 2: tech that you know both these states you know why
- 21:21Speaker 2: as they subjugate palestinians so that's just another way that
- 21:24Speaker 2: like you know black people here and palestinians are connected
- 21:27Speaker 2: You know, I think we have to look at things
- 21:29Speaker 2: broader because understanding how we, I know some people like
- 21:33Speaker 2: the domestic colony theory, you know, that we are an
- 21:36Speaker 2: internal colony, then what does that look like? What does
- 21:38Speaker 2: that mean when our communities are occupied, right, by police or,
- 21:43Speaker 2: you know, even like the shooting of Colin Wiley in
- 21:45Speaker 2: Mississippi being justified by their attorney general? Right, right. Seeing
- 21:50Speaker 2: that these struggles are connected, and I think that it's
- 21:53Speaker 2: really important that we don't see ourselves as isolated, but
- 21:57Speaker 2: that we have people we can tap into. And in
- 21:58Speaker 2: my trip to Caracas in Venezuela, it was so surprising
- 22:01Speaker 2: seeing so many Venezuelans look just like me, like Black people.
- 22:05Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my gosh, because I don't
- 22:07Speaker 2: see many Venezuelans that are Black. But there are, and
- 22:11Speaker 2: how these struggles are shaped in Black internationalism is very
- 22:15Speaker 2: important for fighting our own battle here, I believe.
- 22:18Speaker 1: And you had the last word, Dr. Kemp. What do
- 22:21Speaker 1: you want to tell our audience and how can we
- 22:23Speaker 1: get in touch with you? How can they become more
- 22:25Speaker 1: involved in Black Alliance for Peace or understanding what's going
- 22:29Speaker 1: on with Cuba and your organization, your advocacy around Cuba
- 22:35Speaker 1: and the diaspora?
- 22:37Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so blackallianceforpeace.com slash Haiti. You can learn all
- 22:42Speaker 2: of our resources on Haiti. Very important. We're also on Instagram,
- 22:47Speaker 2: Black Alliance for Peace, Twitter, Black Alliance for Peace, or
- 22:50Speaker 2: Blacks for Peace on Twitter and Facebook. So we're really
- 22:54Speaker 2: trying to pick up our social media. And I also
- 22:56Speaker 2: just want to point out that it's the week of
- 22:59Speaker 2: action for defense of black migrants. And that's just something
- 23:02Speaker 2: that we're working with. I mean, you know, the Miami
- 23:04Speaker 2: Cluster is working with with Baji, which is the Black
- 23:07Speaker 2: Alliance for Just Immigration. And we're just really trying to,
- 23:11Speaker 2: like I said, spread our message on the war on
- 23:14Speaker 2: African people here being connected to the war on Africans abroad.
- 23:17Speaker 2: and driving out the heart of US militarization so that
- 23:20Speaker 2: we can have a true zone of peace. And yeah,
- 23:23Speaker 2: you can tap into our US NATO axis of domination
- 23:26Speaker 2: out of our America's networks. There's a lot. But thank
- 23:30Speaker 2: you so much.